Claims of public acceptance being key are shallow words that will not fool the public in the North-East.

EirGrid propaganda will fail
EirGrid’s Director of External Affairs was on RTE News at One this Friday 22nd September outlining why the Grid West project no longer requires the 240 extra high voltage pylon towers that it originally rolled out as critical infrastructure in the company’s Grid 25 strategy document.
The EirGrid spokesperson was at pains to emphasize that the company has changed its approach and now wants to work with communities to make sure that projects are firstly acceptable to the public:

“that’s based on a lot of feedback in the region from people who were going to be impacted by the project but also from stakeholders in the region who were keen that we would move ahead with a project that would be acceptable to the public”

“the key issue here is to make sure that we are trying to develop projects that are going to be delivered with public acceptance in mind. So I suppose the EirGrid approach has changed in terms of we want to work with communities and make sure that the solutions we come up with to connect those projects to the grid are acceptable and we also want to meet the policy requirements that are needed and as a result of that we have redone our whole approach towards grid development..”

On Northern Sound on Thursday of this week (21st September) the Communications manager for EirGrid stated that there was a shift in acceptance for the North-South interconnector Extra High Voltage lines project based on the existence of community funds and compensation for landowners.
NEPPC wonders what planet these people are on:

EirGrid has never recognised or rated public acceptance as a factor in the N-S interconnector. It has deliberately ignored all public concerns for 10 years.

In the 2 public hearings on this project there have been thousands of objections to the overhead lines. This has never been factored into the company’s decision criteria.

EirGrid is fully aware of over 95% opposition to the project as an overhead line by the very landowners whose consent the company requires to allow building the project. It has consistently ignored these people.

The statements this week are pure propaganda that will not wash with the public in the North East.
Lest there be any confusion, NEPPC, who represents a large number of these affected landowners, wishes to make it clear that there is no public acceptance to the overhead line project. As a concept overhead is dead. There is no approval from An Bord Pleanála for entry or access to landowners’ properties. Statements such as the above by the PR machine in EirGrid this week serves only to further alienate and provoke ordinary landowners going about their business in the North-East.
Ends –
Further information:
087 680 36 66;www.nepp.ie